Commonwealth Act No. 83

Also known as: CA 83 — the standard citation form · The Securities Act — the Section 1 short title · The Securities Act of 1936 — the historical styling · The Old Securities Act of 1936 — the Supreme Court's own retrospective styling in the Interport litigation ([SC e-Library — Interport](https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/47060 "SEC v. Interport Resources Corporation, G.R. No. 135808 (October 6, 2008) — Supreme Court E-Library"))

Business

Definition

Commonwealth Act No. 83, approved October 26, 1936, is the statute of the Commonwealth of the Philippines long-titled “AN ACT TO REGULATE THE SALE OF SECURITIES, TO CREATE A SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION TO ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS OF THE SAME, AND TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS THEREFOR” — and by its own Section 1, “This Act may be cited as ‘Securities Act.'” (LawPhil — CA 83) It is the founding statute of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): Section 3 provides that “There is hereby established a Securities and Exchange Commission,” “to be under the direction of a commissioner to be appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments,” salaried “at the rate of ten thousand pesos a year” and holding office “during good behavior,” with the Commission “under the executive supervision of the Department of Justice.” (LawPhil — CA 83) The Commission began operations on November 11, 1936, with Ricardo Nepomuceno as its first commissioner — one of the Commonwealth’s earliest regulatory agencies, created “just two years after the United States Congress created the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.” (Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

The Act ran to forty-four sections in six chapters — registration of securities with exemptions and fees, registration of brokers, dealers, and salesmen, and regulation of exchanges including margin rules, anti-manipulation provisions, and insider reporting — with Chapters I–III effective on approval and the rest on January 1, 1937, and closed with the line “Approved, October 26, 1936.” (LawPhil — CA 83) Two identifications matter at the outset: CA 83 is not the “Corporation Law of 1936” — the Corporation Law is Act No. 1459 of 1906, the subject of this wiki’s entry on that statute, which CA 83 left in force and even cites (“the general Corporation Law,” Sec. 6[j]) — and its long life as the securities charter ended not in 1980 but with the Revised Securities Act, Batas Pambansa Blg. 178, whose own repeal came with the Securities Regulation Code of 2000. (LawPhil — CA 83, LawPhil — BP 178, LawPhil — RA 8799, SC e-Library — Interport)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article at “Commonwealth Act No. 83” (404 verified this session); the statute is treated within the Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines) article
Wikidata	N/A — entity search for “Commonwealth Act 83” returns no item (verified this session)
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — LC authorities unreachable this session (HTTP 403)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Commonwealth Act No. 83 Securities Act October 26 1936 Securities and Exchange Commission Philippines Ricardo Nepomuceno registration of securities broker dealer exchange regulation Revised Securities Act BP 178 RA 8799 disclosure 1936
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

CA 83 — the standard citation form
The Securities Act — the Section 1 short title
The Securities Act of 1936 — the historical styling
The Old Securities Act of 1936 — the Supreme Court’s own retrospective styling in the Interport litigation (SC e-Library — Interport)

Examples and Analogies

A blue-sky statute for a boom market: the Act was passed to “safeguard public interest in view of the local stock market boom at the time” — the Philippine answer, two years behind the American original, to the same depression-era disclosure problem the U.S. SEC was created to police. (Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)
A one-man commission: where the modern SEC is a collegial commission, CA 83’s SEC was “under the direction of a commissioner” — a single presidential appointee with Commission on Appointments consent, a good-behavior tenure, and a bar on outside business or stock-market involvement. (LawPhil — CA 83)
Disclosure as the engine, courts as the enforcement tail: the Act’s core was the registration statement and its exemptions, with investigation backed by subpoena and compulsion and enforcement channeled through the ordinary courts — Section 31 lets the Commission seek injunctions through the Court of First Instance of Manila, an adjudication-free design the later PD 902-A era would reverse. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)
Verified statutory data:
Approval: “Approved, October 26, 1936”; Chapters I–III effective on approval, the remainder on January 1, 1937 (Sec. 44); forty-four sections in six chapters (LawPhil — CA 83)
Short title: “Securities Act” (Sec. 1) (LawPhil — CA 83)
SEC creation: Sec. 3 — commissioner appointed by the President with Commission on Appointments consent; ₱10,000 per annum; good-behavior tenure; Department of Justice supervision (LawPhil — CA 83)
Securities regulation: registration of securities (Secs. 4–13), exemptions (Secs. 5–6), procedure and fees (Sec. 7), suspension (Sec. 8), licensing of speculative securities (Sec. 9), annual financial statements (Sec. 11), revocation (Sec. 12) (LawPhil — CA 83)
Market intermediaries: brokers, dealers, and salesmen registered and bonded (Secs. 14–15); exchanges registered (Sec. 17); margin rules (Sec. 18); anti-manipulation (Secs. 20–21); insider reporting and short-swing profits (Sec. 26); records and examinations (Sec. 27) (LawPhil — CA 83)
Investigations and rules: subpoenas, compelled attendance and production, injunctions via the Court of First Instance of Manila (Sec. 31); rulemaking (Sec. 33) (LawPhil — CA 83)
Repeal and funds: “All Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed” (Sec. 42); ₱50,000 plus all collections appropriated (Sec. 43) (LawPhil — CA 83)
Corporate-law intersection: pre-incorporation subscriptions dealt with “under the general Corporation Law” (Sec. 6[j]) — Act No. 1459 remained the incorporation statute throughout (LawPhil — CA 83)

Usage Scenarios

1. Tracing the SEC’s Founding Charter

Every account of the Securities and Exchange Commission begins here — CA 83 of October 26, 1936 creating the Commission, operations opening November 11, 1936, Nepomuceno the first commissioner — the founding this wiki’s securities-regulation-code entry carries forward. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

2. Citing the Prewar Disclosure Regime

Historians of Philippine capital regulation work from the Act’s own machinery: mandatory registration of securities sold to the public, statutory exemptions, annual statements, revocation powers, and the broker, dealer, and exchange registrations of Chapters IV and V. (LawPhil — CA 83)

3. Distinguishing Securities Law from Corporation Law

The era’s corporate framework was two statutes: Act No. 1459 (the Corporation Law, 1906) for incorporation and governance, CA 83 (the Securities Act, 1936) for securities and the Commission — a division of labor this wiki’s entries on the Corporation Law of 1906 and the Securities Regulation Code preserve, and which CA 83’s Sec. 6(j) reference to “the general Corporation Law” documents from inside the statute. (LawPhil — CA 83)

4. Dating the Statutory Lineage

The securities-law succession is CA 83 (1936) → Revised Securities Act (Batas Pambansa Blg. 178, “This Act shall be known as the Revised Securities Act,” Sec. 1) → Securities Regulation Code (Republic Act No. 8799, 2000) — with the Supreme Court certifying in SEC v. Interport Resources that the Code “repealed the Revised Securities Act.” (LawPhil — BP 178, SC e-Library — Interport, LawPhil — RA 8799)

Strategies

Import the American model early: the Commonwealth legislated disclosure regulation within two years of the U.S. SEC’s creation — regulatory modernization adopted before the market it regulated had grown large. (Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)
One accountable regulator: the single-commissioner design — presidential appointment, legislative consent, good-behavior tenure, conflict-of-interest bar — concentrated responsibility for an infant securities market in one officer under the Department of Justice. (LawPhil — CA 83)
Regulate by registration, not by merit: the Act policed what was disclosed — registration statements, annual reports, revocation for violation — rather than the wisdom of the investment, the disclosure premise the 1982 and 2000 successors retained. (LawPhil — CA 83)
Enforce through the ordinary courts: by routing injunctions through the Court of First Instance of Manila (Sec. 31), the Act kept the Commission investigative and prosecutorial — an adjudication-free design the PD 902-A era’s expansion would abandon. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

Security and Safety Measures

Good-behavior tenure with consent-based appointment: the commissioner’s tenure during good behavior and the Commission on Appointments check were the statute’s safeguards of the regulator’s independence. (LawPhil — CA 83)
A conflict-of-interest bar: the commissioner was barred from outside business involvement and stock-market operations — investor protection beginning with the protector’s neutrality. (LawPhil — CA 83)
Compulsory process: the subpoena, compelled attendance, and document-production powers of Sec. 31 armed the Commission against concealment, with the courts available to compel obedience. (LawPhil — CA 83)
Self-funding alongside appropriation: the ₱50,000 appropriation plus “all collections under this Act” (Sec. 43) gave the infant agency a fee-fed budget — the early form of the retention authority the modern Code generalizes. (LawPhil — CA 83)
For researchers: date the Act October 26, 1936 and the SEC’s first operating day November 11, 1936 — two dates frequently conflated — and do not credit CA 83 with the corporate-registration powers the SEC acquired only under later charters; the Act’s own text reaches securities, brokers, and exchanges. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

Historical Context

CA 83 belongs to the Commonwealth’s institution-building decade. The 1935 Constitution had inaugurated self-government under Manuel L. Quezon, and the new regime was erecting its regulatory state — against a background the Commission’s record describes as “the local stock market boom at the time” — when the National Assembly passed the Act on October 26, 1936: a single-commissioner SEC under the Department of Justice, a registration-based securities regime, and a brokers-and-exchanges code modeled on the young American statute. The Commission opened its doors on November 11, 1936 under Ricardo Nepomuceno. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

The statute’s later life ran through regime changes. The Commission was abolished during the Japanese occupation — replaced within the Philippine Executive Commission — and reactivated in 1947 with the restoration of the Commonwealth government; the securities statute was amended across the decades until Batas Pambansa Blg. 178 restated it as the Revised Securities Act, and the Securities Regulation Code (effective August 8, 2000) repealed that successor in turn — the Supreme Court in SEC v. Interport Resources (2008) certifying the chain while noting that the new Code reenacted the substance of the old provisions. (Wikipedia — SEC Philippines, LawPhil — BP 178, SC e-Library — Interport, LawPhil — RA 8799)

Challenges and Controversies

“Corporation Law of 1936” — a Misnomer

A recurring mislabel styles CA 83 as the Corporation Law of 1936. The statute’s own Section 1 names it the Securities Act; the Corporation Law remained Act No. 1459 of 1906, which CA 83 neither amended in general nor replaced — its Sec. 6(j) cites the Corporation Law as a living statute. The confusion likely feeds on the SEC’s later corporate mandate under PD 902-A (1975) and on this wiki’s separate survey entry on the Corporation Law of 1906, which this entry stands beside rather than duplicates. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

Which Date — October 26, November 1, or November 11?

The Act was approved October 26, 1936 — the header, the Sec. 44 effectivity clause for its first chapters, and the closing “Approved” line all agree — while the Commission’s operations began November 11, 1936. Secondary dates wandering between late October and mid-November usually conflate the statute’s approval with the agency’s first working day. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)

A Statute Dismembered by Amendment

CA 83 reached the 1980s heavily amended, and the Interport record shows why its citation is treacherous: conduct stretching back to the “Old Securities Act of 1936” was investigated in the 1990s under the Revised Securities Act’s renumbered sections, with the Supreme Court mapping old provisions onto new (old Sec. 30 onto the Code’s insider-trading Sec. 27, old Sec. 36 onto the new Sec. 23). Researchers citing “the Securities Act” must fix the year of the text they mean. (SC e-Library — Interport)

A Regulator Without Its Own Court

Section 31’s routing of injunctions through the Court of First Instance of Manila gave the founding SEC no adjudicatory forum of its own — a design reversed under PD 902-A, when the Commission acquired jurisdiction over corporate disputes, and ended with the 2000 Code’s transfer of rehabilitation cases to the Regional Trial Courts. The 1936 design and the 2000 settlement bracket the same institutional question. (LawPhil — CA 83, Wikipedia — SEC Philippines)